serum concentration of artemisinin after single and chronic oral dose administration in broiler chickens

although preliminary studies have shown the anticoccidial effects of artemisinin in broiler chickens, there are no proofs of its pharmacokinetics. the objective of this study was to determine the serum concentration of artemisinin after single and multiple oral administration in broiler chickens. a total of 390 one-day-old healthy ross 308 chickens were divided randomly into two groups. in the first group, single oral doses of 0, 1, 5, 25, 125, 250, 500 and 1000 mg/kg artemisinin were given on day 44, and in the second group 0, 17, 34, 68 and 136 ppm of artemisinin were given chronically in the diet over a 36-day period. an hplc system with uv detector was used to determine serum level of artemisinin. data were presented as mean ± se and analyzed using the linear mixed model (p < 0.05). the results showed that in both groups the serum levels of artemisinin were generally very low and there were no significant differences between multiple and single dose administration groups or between different doses in each group (p < 0.05). the serum levels of artemisinin in the chickens that had received single doses were in the range of 25.38 ± 0.15 to 42.27 ± 12.04 ng/ml and 24.68 ± 0.12 to 29.24 ± 1.72 ng/ml for those that had received chronic doses. it can be concluded that serum level of artemisinin administered orally to the chickens as single or chronic doses is low which seems to be due to low oral absorption and metabolism induction and thus, can have high therapeutic index and good anticoccidial properties.